1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a mobile operating environment, and more particularly, to a packet data network gateway facilitating service discovery, group formation and session continuity for peer-to-peer (P2P) networking.
2. Background
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks.
A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of mobile entities, such as, for example, user equipments (UEs). A UE may communicate with a base station via the downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base station to the UE, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the base station. Such communication links may be established via a single-in-single-out, multiple-in-signal-out, or a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system.
Dual mode (or multi-mode) mobiles refer to UEs that are compatible with more than one form of data transmission or network, as contrasted with single-mode mobiles. For instance, a multi-mode UE may use more than one technique for sending and receiving voice and data. Multi-mode can refer to network compatibility, such as UEs containing two types of cellular radios for voice and data. In another aspect, a dual mode UE can use both cellular and non-cellular radios for voice and data communication. For example, a given dual mode UE may use cellular radio that contain GSM/CDMA/W-CDMA, as well as another technology like IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) radio, WiMAX, or Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) radio. In related aspects, Wi-Fi is a subset of wireless local area network (WLAN) that links devices via a wireless distribution method (typically spread-spectrum or OFDM) and usually provides a connection through an access point to the wider Internet. This gives users the mobility to move around within a local coverage area and still be connected to the network. In further related aspects, WiMAX, an acronym for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, provides fixed and fully mobile Internet access, and is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard.
Some multi-mode UEs can communicate peer-to-peer (P2P) which refers to a distributed network architecture composed of participants that make up a portion of their resources (such as processing power, disk storage or network bandwidth) directly available to other network participants, without the need for central coordination instances (such as servers or stable hosts).
While wireless P2P networking has a number of advantages, it can be difficult for service discovery to determine what devices are within range. If the service discovery is “unscoped” in the sense that the number of availability broadcasts or responses by the P2P UEs is not limited to devices that are likely to be within radio frequency (RF) range of each other, this can impose a significant burden on devices to broadcast their availability and to negotiate a connection. This can be especially troublesome in congested area with many devices that can consume available air link resources. Also, the number of responses to an unscoped service discovery may be excessive and irrelevant (e.g., the devices may be unlikely to be within RF range). In this context, there is a need for P2P UEs to efficiently discover available P2P services and to form groups. There is also a need for UEs within a group to maintain P2P session continuity even when the P2P communication link(s) between group members become weak or broken.